unhair

present singular third person unhairs · participle present unhairing · participle past unhaired · past unhaired

1. transitiveTo remove hair from (something), especially from hide.

   Hence horrible Villaine, or Ile ſpurne thine eyes / Like balls before me: Ile vnhaire thy head, […]

   c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v], page 348, column 2

   2 more examples

   The sides, after being unhaired, are put in clean water over night, then green-shaved and put in a bate of hen manure four or five days.

   1889, Annual report of the Bureau of Animal Industry - Volume 4, Parts 1887-1888, page 425

   They found that such a practice produced what was termed a "mellow" lime; the mellower the lime the more rapidly it unhaired the skin.

   1924, Tanners' Council of America. Research Laboratory, University of Cincinnati, Reports and Papers, volume 2, page 520

2. intransitiveTo become free from hair.

   If the skin is soaked in an amine solution before being placed in the lime it unhairs at a faster rate, however, than if soaked in plain water, as shown in Table VII.

   1927, The Journal of the American Leather Chemists Association, page 361